Your Right to Know

CLEARWATER, Fla. — Florida resident Kathy McMurray has no doubt she’ll vote for Mitt Romney in November — she’s a diehard Republican. But if there’s one thing that gives her pause, it’s the party’s focus on abortion and similar issues.

“I don’t need him making my reproductive decisions for me,” she said of Romney, who will accept his party’s nomination for president on Thursday. “I’m not a child. I’m a grown woman who can make my own decisions.”

In 2008, 10 million more women voted than men.

This year, poll after poll indicates a yawning gap between Romney and President Barack Obama on women’s issues.

An ABC News/ Washington Post national poll taken last week found that Obama beat Romney on women’s issues 51 percent to 35 percent.

And a Quinnipiac University poll of Ohio voters released on Thursday found that women backed Obama 54 percent to Romney’s 41 percent, while men preferred Romney 48 percent to Obama’s 46 percent.

A Dispatch Poll released on Sunday found Obama beating Romney among Ohio women voters by 10 percentage points.

Romney’s wife, Ann, aimed to narrow that gap last night in her speech to the convention, suggesting her husband, “the man I met at a dance,” was the best candidate to address women’s concerns.

“It’s the moms who always have to work a little harder, to make everything right,” she said. “It’s the moms of this nation — single, married, widowed — who really hold this country together. “

She said women have had it harder the past few years.

“It’s all the little things — that price at the pump you just can’t believe, the grocery bills that just get bigger; all those things that used to be free, like school sports, are now one more bill to pay,” she said.

“It’s all the little things that pile up to become big things. And the big things — the good jobs, the chance at college, that home you want to buy — just get harder. Everything has become harder. We’re too smart to know there aren’t easy answers. But we’re not dumb enough to accept that there aren’t better answers.”

The outcry over women’s issues has been an unwanted distraction for the Romney campaign, which would prefer to focus on economic issues. Most recently, U.S. Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri suggested in a TV interview that during a “legitimate rape,” women’s bodies have ways of repelling a pregnancy. Earlier this year, former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., focused heavily on issues such as abortion during the Republican primary, but he eventually quit the race.

On the other end of the spectrum, Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen irked Republicans earlier this year by suggesting that Ann Romney had “never worked a day in her life,” and Catholics and anti-abortion groups were outraged by an Obama administration rule that would require religious organizations to cover birth control as part of their health plans.

Democrats have leapt on the women’s issue, with national party vice chairwoman Donna Brazile sending out a fundraising plea on Monday accusing Romney and running mate Paul Ryan of wanting “to roll back women’s rights.”

“President Obama believes women should make their own health-care decisions and should earn the same pay as men for the same work,” said Stephanie Cutter, a spokeswoman for the Obama campaign. “ That’s a pretty stark contrast with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, who want to make women’s health-care decisions for them, and stand against helping women fight for equal pay.”

McMurray, who lives in Odessa, Fla., near Clearwater, acknowledged as much. She said the uncertainty about the economy will be the top driver of how she votes.

Jo Ann Davidson, the former speaker of the Ohio House, said she thinks her fellow Republican women will vote with their wallets.

“The real issue for women is what it is for everyone else,” she said. “It’s the jobs issue. It’s huge for them. Unemployment numbers among women have gone up in Obama’s first term.”